9 ms·
Starving your workers to death is not a good long term strategy.
by EchoChamberMan 3y ago
Starving your workers to death is not a good long term strategy.
- hinkley 3y agoI’ve worked for businesses that were starved to death by customers who told us they needed our services to function. Management is not nearly as smart as they want us to think.
- bee_rider 3y agoWhat if your customers were smart, but also lying? (Able to get by without your product, but willing to buy it for cheap).
- ramesh31 3y ago> Starving your workers to death is not a good long term strategy. It is when you have an unlimited supply of workers with zero protections. The breaking of the social contract makes all the old rules no longer apply. They will drive us to the absolute edge of torches and pitchforks and keep us there, forever. They will come up with newer and better ways of determining where that line is, and just how far they can push it. And we will sit here like obedient dogs and take it.
- lotsofpulp 3y agoThe unlimited supply of workers parameter is less and less true as the days go by.
- Tycho 3y agoYour reply is rather hyperbolic.
- ramesh31 3y ago> Your reply is rather hyperbolic. I had a grocery store clerk eyeballing my checkout yesterday with absolute amazement at the "luxury" of buying TWO boxes of name brand cream cheese. We live in two completely seperate worlds at this point, and I don't think you have any idea how bad things have gotten for the bottom 90% in this country earning <$100k.
- scruple 3y agoI'm also feeling reluctant to buy name brand anything in a grocery store these days, except Wild Turkey 101 I guess.
- gambiting 3y agoIt's not just US - there is a very interesting article in the British Guardian on this very topic at the moment, how people on £60k-100k are still struggling, even though this was always traditionally a very decent pay, nothing super fancy but definitely a nice middle class income that would let you pay off your house, have a modest car and go on holidays once a year. Now everything has exploded in price so much that people earning £70k get nearly nothing left at the end of the month after paying their mortgage/rent, bills, childcare, plus some money for fuel to just get to work. I understand that they are all "privileged" in the sense that they can still afford all of those things while many people in this country can't, but the margins are getting thinner and thinner. People can't save up, they can't buy new stuff(which hurts the economy even further), they spend less money on their kids.....it's not great. Like, me and my wife have a very decent combined income of over 100k, but even then - 10 years ago I would have thought that with that kind of money we'd be living like kings, but in reality it just lets us save some money at the end of the month and not a whole lot else. If we actually wanted to move up from our 900sqf house or get a slightly newer car, it would eat up into all of that quickly. I think we've reached a point now where I literally don't understand who in this country is buying all these new cars and goes on holidays twice a year(forget expensive ones - I mean a few days in Spain with a budget agency). And I definitely don't understand how a teacher on £27k a year(or a nurse) is expected to make ends meet. It feels like an erosion of society from the very core, where unless you are in the top 1% you just aren't even playing the same game.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- helboi4 3y agoAs a single 25 year old (UK), I don't save much, I don't have a car, I have rent but no mortgage, no dependants. I don't feel very rich, but I do go on two holidays a year. Though does it even count if I crash on people's floors or stay in a hostel? The idea of staying in a hotel is insane to me, which probably says a lot. I feel like I am the only person in my friendship group who can afford things like a decent place to live and good quality groceries. This is all from me working hard to move into Software engineering from a languages and humanities degree. Honestly feel that the system is severely broken if the only way to afford a decent quality of life is to get into one of the most lucrative professions out there. Most of the people in my job have been screwed over by the market and have way more rent than me as well, so are probably not even able to do the things I can. I feel a lot of pressure to get into FAANG or something in order to hope to ever get a house in my lifetime. Especially since my landlord threatened to put up my rent by like £400 the other day and my boss told me my raises will never keep up with inflation. But I'm a humanities person. I don't see myself becoming some sort of 10x engineer without it making me miserable. So, since the absolutely fucked announcements from my landlord and boss, I'm thinking of any way to leave this economic shithole of a country.
- polygamous_bat 3y agoHyperbole is often (successfully) used as a literary device to express sentiments. Is there a sentiment expressed in the parent comment you don’t agree with? Then let’s talk about that instead of the form of the argument.
- helboi4 3y agoThis is a great rebuke when someone tries to skirt around your point when you use hyperbole. Will be keeping this one.
- lotsofpulp 3y agoIf you have to use hyperbole (aka lies, fantasies, or otherwise misrepresentations of reality), then you have no point. Hyperbole is for good storytelling, not nuanced discussion or argument.
- helboi4 3y agoIf you think when people use obvious hyperbole they are lying to you, then you are just dimwitted mate. Not my problem. Go back to school.
- Tycho 3y agoI disagree with the doomsaying and making things out to be much worse than they actually are. I don’t think it’s a good thing to do.
- polygamous_bat 3y agoOnce again, it’s a literary device; you’re doing the same thing when you call it “doomsaying”. The goal of it is to evoke a certain emotion out of the reader, which is fine in a discussion. Otherwise any conversation would be dry as a doctor’s report for gastric issues.
- Tycho 3y ago
- malka 3y agoDont have kids. Starve the bourgeoisie.
- NoMoreNicksLeft 3y agoI'm not sure collective suicide is a solution, but if it were, I'd still be reluctant to implement it.
- InCityDreams 3y agoIt would send a very convincing message, though.
- pc86 3y agoWho would be left to receive it?
- malka 3y agoThe bourgois, whom would have to fight among themselves to determine who will dominate, and who will be dominated. Or they would have to resort do massive immigration, destroying culturally their own country in the process, and laying the path to being replaced in the long run. None of this path is good for them.
- NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago[flagged]
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- malka 3y agodang, is this type of discourse acceptable here ?
- SoftTalker 3y agoYes and just look at history. This has been the way most people live and have lived. As peasants, toiling for landowners in exchange for survival. It is a good long term strategy in that it has been the norm throughout history. The occasional violent uprisings are a cost of doing business.
- EchoChamberMan 3y agoSo the guillotines are coming?
- AnimalMuppet 3y agoMany businesses trying to hire these days would take issue with your "unlimited supply of workers".
- ryandrake 3y agoWhich businesses are "trying to hire" and what compensation are they offering? At the right wage, there is practically an unlimited workforce.
- EchoChamberMan 3y agoMost businesses have self-imposed requirements that make it impossible.
- doctorwho42 3y agoBut in the short term it pays dividends, bonuses, and raises. It's kind of a tragedy of the commons type problem, none of the leadership and investors care about the long term (the negative effects on the corporation or society) as long as individually they succeed.
- polygamous_bat 3y agoSo many of us know about Goodhart’s law but willfully ignorant about how that applies to modern economies. We made money to be the metric we judge things by, and now we get to enjoy or suffer the results of overoptimization on that metric.
- EchoChamberMan 3y agoUntil the whole thing collapses and blows up in your face.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- burkaman 3y agoGenerally the people in charge are old and don't need a long term strategy.
- yborg 3y agoAI models don't eat.
- EchoChamberMan 3y agoThey also don't know fact from fiction!